For the World is a Mirror
by Fizzing Wizard
Summary: Ororo just wants her family to stay together. But kids need room to grow. And the fact is, Kurt has a lot of growing to do. And it's not fun. And he's not always proud of the way he behaves. And Kitty, Kitty's going through the exact same thing, only in a different way, and the worst part is it's driving them apart, just when they need each other's friendship the most.
1. How Not to Make a Decision

**For the World Is a Mirror**

**Chapter One  
How Not to Make a Decision**

Everything must be perfect. The thought looped through his head like a merry-go-round, sing-song and somewhat absurd.

6:30: Wake up. Shower, brush teeth, etc. Put on best black trousers, the pressed lavender shirt and white tie. Aim for mature, classy, but not so French couture that you look like a cuckoo in peacock feathers. Borrow (steal) Scott's hair gel, but go easy on it.

7:00: Breakfast is important even if it makes your throat thick or gives you bad breath. At least grab a slice of toast. Bring mints. (Crash a Gut Bomb on the way home.)

7:10: Borrow (don't steal) the Queen. If the Queen cannot be borrowed, settle for another, however less flashy, vehicle. Flashy isn't her style anyway. Leave for White Plains Airport by 7:20 latest. Do NOT forget image inducer.

8:00: Farewells said.

* * *

_Everything must be perfect._ The thought ricocheted off the inner walls of his skull like a pinball in a frenzy. Buried within his cocoon of sheets, Kurt peeked at the flashing red numbers of his digital clock, red as her dress when she told him:

"Kurt, we – we're moving. To Wisconsin. They... my parents want out of the center of mutant politics."

_I'll miss you,_ she'd said. And then, almost like an apology, _I love you._

Words he wished he could taste.

He lay on his back and savored them. Maybe if he didn't move, time would stand still. Or better yet, rewind – give them a few more days together. A few more days, and maybe he'd begin to understand his own heart. Why he hadn't said _I love you_ back.

Well, he'd see her today, and maybe in those last few moments, he'd know.

_Kurt, we're moving… Kurt…_

"Kurt!"

He blinked sleepy yellow eyes.

"What are you doing? Shouldn't you be up by now?" came Kitty's voice, brisk as ever as she half-phased through the wall. His reliable, toothbrush-wielding defender of punctuality. "It's after seven o'clock!"

"What!?" He burst straight into the shower, leaving her choking on a sulphurous cloud. The boys' bathroom was mercifully empty. He grabbed the shampoo and lathered his hair.

Through the frosted shower door, he saw Kitty phase into the bathroom with the clothes he'd laid out for himself last night. "Your robes, Majesty," she said. If he'd been his normal self, he would have bowed.

"Thanks," he called over the spray. "So it's after seven? How much after seven?"

"Oh, like, seven-oh-six or something. 'Manda's flight isn't till nine, right?"

"Yeah, but she needs to go in earlier to board. Gott, I hope she waits."

"She'll wait," Kitty assured him. "It's her last few minutes with her boyfriend. Her parents will understand that much." She paused, and Kurt could sense the question hanging in the air. "… Will you still be her boyfriend after she moves?"

He frowned as he overloaded his hands with soap. "I don't know." The shower muted his answer somewhat, but he was fine with that. Louder, he said, "Why are you still in here anyway? Can't a guy get some privacy?"

"Come on, Fuzzy, anything you've got to show is just reruns for me."

"Kitty! I never knew you were a woman of such loose morals!"

"I prefer 'woman of specialized knowledge.'"

"And I prefer you get out."

She stuck out her tongue and disappeared through the wall. In spite of his mood, and his headache, he couldn't help smiling. Somehow Kitty managed to bring the sunshine wherever she went.

By the time he returned to his room, dry and clothed, the clock read 7:20. He decided (with deep regret) to forego breakfast after all, and ran a comb through his hair several times until it looked glossy. Then he smoothed in Scott's hair gel. Someone had left a dark tub of cologne in the medicine cabinet – a scent called "mountain musk," whatever _that_ meant – so he'd nicked it too. He wasn't sure how to use it, so he shut his eyes and held the bottle at great distance to spritz it on, before realizing his error as he got a jet of liquid in his face. Great, now he'd spend the whole trip wondering if the smell was too strong. Oh well.

Throwing his backpack over his shoulder, he just remembered to grab his image inducer before bolting down the stairs.

As he passed the lounge, Bobby glanced up from his magazine and gave him a funny look. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he asked, never shifting from his lazy-morning sprawl on the sofa.

"Airport," Kurt mumbled.

"Can't you just 'port there?"

He shook his head. "Too far. Besides, I don't want to smell like rotten eggs for Amanda." Though that might be a moot point now that his fur was coated in mountain musk.

Bobby squinted at the top of his head. "Your hair looks stiff as a board."

Kurt doubled back to look himself over in the hall mirror and winced. Bobby was right – the gel had bound to his hair like plaster. He gave it an experimental poke. It had an unusual matted texture, like twine.

But Bad Hair Days would have to wait.

Scott's red convertible, the Queen, was missing from the garage. So were the two X-vans and Jean's SUV. Kurt looked around, bewildered, cursing himself for not reserving one of the vans when it was the weekend and he knew competition would be fierce.

Then he saw _Her –_ Logan's bike, sleek, shining, groomed like a prized racehorse. Not that, even for a moment, he entertained the thought of stealing _Her._ In spite of the hour, he still hoped to make it to the airport looking more or less respectable. Which would not be likely after narrowly escaping a mauling once Logan got a whiff of his intentions. Logan's hypersensitive nose was not limited to the normal range of odors: Kurt was convinced that he could smell what people were thinking. (Hank would postulate something about picking up pheromones, but Kurt did not feel like sciencing it out right now.)

All the quads were latched up securely – not teleportation-proof, of course, but the minute he bamfed one out the Professor would know, and that would mean a month of X-jet cleaning duty.

Sometimes living in a house full of mutants sucked.

He surprised himself with how seriously he was considering taking the risk anyway, when Logan lumbered in.

"Gotta have a chaperone if you want to ride, Elf," he rasped around a cigarette.

If, instead of being Kurt, he were Kitty (or Jubilee, or Rogue, or Bobby), he'd say: "Then chaperone me, or I'm going on my own and you'll have to waste an hour chasing me down."

Since he was, lamentably, stuck with himself: _"Pleeeease_ just this once don't tell, just this once! I will never do it again. After this once. And I will cover maintenance for a month."

Logan puffed a stream of smoke and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. "What's so important that it's made you go stupid?" he asked, grinding the butt into the floor with the toe of his shoe.

"Amanda," he blurted out, feeling embarrassed and pathetic.

"Ah. S'always some girl."

"She's moving. I have to be at the airport by eight. _By eight._ And I overslept and I didn't get any mints and my hair is hard as rock –"

"Shut up," Logan said, and: "Get on." He threw one leg over his bike, his beauty, and kicked it into gear. The engine went _vrmmm,_ warming with power. In trying to hide his total and complete astonishment, Kurt screwed up his nose and mouth into an expression which Logan incorrectly read as nausea.

"Look, if you're gonna puke, just lean over the side."

"No! No," Kurt interrupted in a hurry, still not sure if Logan's unusual generosity would prove his saving grace or the instrument of his destruction, but either way he needed to get to Amanda, _now._ "There will be no puking. All internal organs will stay exactly where they are meant, which is out of my esophagus."

"I never know what the hell you're going on about," griped Logan under his breath as Kurt climbed on behind him. The bike thrummed as he searched for a comfortable position for his tail.

Logan handed him a helmet. After a moment's pause during which Kurt considered what effect helmet head might have on gel-stiff twine hair, he decided to leave it behind. If Logan noticed, he chose not to say anything. Good. It felt kind of stupid that he had to wear a helmet ever, when every day at four p.m. he was leaping around a "danger room" where the fears were simulated, but the pain was real. Besides, for all his daredevil exploits and flagrant shirking of rules, there weren't many bikers who could keep a passenger as safe as Wolverine could.

"Don't fall off," Logan instructed, and they sped down the drive.

* * *

Arriving at White Plains Airport on a motorbike made possibly an even flashier entrance than Scott's car would have. It was certainly louder. Kurt's heart rate didn't start to slow until they braked under the sign that read _United Airlines, _and then he hiccupped all the way inside.

"Hold up, Elf," Logan said, grabbing his arm and dragging him into the men's room. Logan never waited for anyone. In the bathroom, he looked Kurt up and down with an appraising scowl that made the hairs on his chin jut out. "Filched my cologne, did ya?"

Kurt froze. "That was yours?" He hadn't known Logan owned a bar of soap, let alone cologne. He stared at him sidelong. _"... 'Mountain Musk'?"_

"It was a gift from 'Ro," growled Logan irritably. "What, you thought I'd be a 'vanilla and eucalyptus' type of guy?"

This was quite possibly the most awkward conversation he'd ever had with the Institute's resident grumpy old man. "Well, sorry," he said, mystified.

"Not what I meant. Just sayin', it's kinda pungent. My senses might be tuned a notch or two higher than everyone else's, but I doubt anyone's gonna miss you coming for miles."

"Oh no," Kurt groaned. "What should I do?"

"Port around a few times," Logan suggested.

"That will make it worse!"

"At least you'll smell more like yourself."

He'd never heard a more distasteful plan, but he really didn't want Amanda to know how magnificently he'd messed up just making it this far. Without leaving the bathroom, he teleported into each separate stall, until he felt reasonably assured of his own stink. Fighting the urge to just forget everything and port home, he walked back toward Logan, who was covering his nose and grimacing.

"Well," Logan mused, "I think you'll get points for effort. Don't get all worked up," he added when Kurt let his shoulders slump. "You're always doin' weird things. Must be she likes that about you. Don't ask me why. And is that what you're wearing?"

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Kurt said defensively, turning to peer in the mirror even as he spoke. His shirt had come untucked during the ride, but otherwise he thought he looked decent.

"Purple shirt with a collar, to see a girl off at the airport? Looks more like you're headin' to Easter service, choir boy."

"Unlike you, Amanda appreciates clothes that don't look like they've been slept in every day for a year."

"Come on, kid, lose the tie. You're sixteen goin' on sixty."

"Fine," Kurt muttered, wanting out of the debate. It was tiring. He yanked off the tie and jammed it in his pocket. "Happy?"

Logan only shrugged. "How about turnin' off that image-thingy?"

Kurt glared.

"Don't ya think she'd rather give her good-bye to the real you?"

"I am the real me," Kurt shot back. "Whether my face is behind a hologram or not. I don't want her parents to keep her from me. I don't want to cause a mass panic. I just want to see my girlfriend, and tell her thank you, and see you again."

Logan took a step back, out the door. When Kurt exited the bathroom, he'd already gone outside, and stood with his back against the window, puffing another cigarette. Kurt watched him for a second, struggling to hold on to his irritation, but grateful, really, that Logan cared enough to give him advice.

And then there was no more procrastinating.

There she was – the Main Event – huddled on a chair by a food stall. A Styrofoam coffee mug in one hand, napkin-wrapped bagel in the other. Her hair in a tumble of a thousand braids, silver beads strung throughout. _Amanda._

Already he felt tongue-tied, and he hadn't even tried to say anything yet.

She spotted him and stood, leaving her food on the seat. Kurt forced his feet to move, determined to meet her, to not leave the bulk of the performance entirely on her shoulders. He owed her that much. But it was so hard.

"Hey," she said, once they'd come close enough to talk. Three feet of indifferently patterned carpet yawned between them.

"Hello," he choked out.

She smiled tremulously. Shyly. It didn't matter. She... she was so beautiful.

"I'm glad you came."

"Wouldn't have missed it."

Her dark eyes searched his face. The thing about Amanda was, he'd never been able to prevaricate with her. Not that he made much of a liar in general; he had an amazing list of tells, beginning with his tendency to babble and ending with the self-conscious swish of his treacherous tail. But there was something about _her_ in particular that defied him – damned if he knew what it was, but it existed. Somewhere in the way one corner of her mouth subtly lifted when she was amused, in the eyebrow ring she'd decided to get to give her parents something else to be angry with her for other than dating him. And he was helpless before it. Any attempt to feint would be laughably useless.

He did not think teleportation was an especially interesting or impressive power, but at the very least, it should mean he could run away when he felt this terrified. But no matter how much he wanted out, this time, he had to stay.

"So... Wisconsin. I hear they've got really great... really great... cheese." Where even _was_ Wisconsin? Manitoba?

"Cheese?"

"Yeah, uh, I looked on the Internet, and it's the biggest producer of cheese in the country, cheese of any kind you can think of. And people say cheese is great with wine. So you can go to a wine-tasting festival, and hit up the cheese mart on the way home."

She looked somewhat mystified. "Oh. Okay. Thanks."

"Although I guess you can't do that because Americans aren't allowed to drink until they're twenty-one. _Scheiße, _I forgot. Sorry."

"Well, I'll try to sneak a sip, just for you." She rubbed her thumb along his wrist. When had he taken her hands? "Kurt, I have to go through security in a few minutes."

So soon?

"Hold on, I have something for you." Assuming it hadn't been crushed during the motorbike debacle. He dug around his pocket, pulled out a little velvety box... and his crumpled tie, which he buried again with a hasty shove. "Oops."

"Did you bring a tie?" She was doing that one-corner-lift thing with her mouth.

"Hahah... yeah. I know, weird. Who brings a tie just to say good... It's not like this is a funer... who brings a tie to an airport? I mean, besides businessmen. And lawyers."

"And James Bond," Amanda added.

"And the _Men in Black,"_ Kurt grinned, feeling better about the tie now. None of those examples were slightly nerdy mutant teenagers, but still.

"And, uh. While I'm confessing things. Sorry about the smell. I tried to do something about it, but I probably should've just stepped on a stink bug."

"Is that you? I thought it was that sketchy-looking bratwurst stand over there." She stifled a giggle. Everything he did made her giggle. A lump formed in his throat as he clamped down on the feelings that threatened to bubble over. _Everything he did made her giggle._

Damn, he really was not himself if he hadn't even noticed the brat stand.

He thrust the little box at her. "It's a going-away present. I know I'm woefully bad at guessing what you'll like when it comes to jewelry, but, I don't know, I saw it and –"

"Let me see," she said with a playful ring to her voice, plucking the box out of his palm and giving it a mock-critical look. He hadn't wrapped it, just taped a curl of ribbon to the top, so all she had to do was snap it open. "You don't have much taste in jewelry, but I forgive you. You try, and we women are hard to please. Supposedly we're what's known as _'fickle'_ – oh, Kurt!"

She actually squealed. He'd never heard her _squeal_ before.

"You like it?" he ventured tentatively.

"Like it? Kurt, it's – oh, wow!" With a gentle tug she lifted the chain out of the box. The pendant swung down: a silver flowering tree enclosed in a circle. Amanda covered her mouth and stared as the tiny filigreed leaves caught in the light.

"You like it!" he exclaimed, barely managing to stomp down on the urge to backflip off the airport wall. "You like it, you do! I did good! I was thinking that it looked like the white tree of Gondor – because that was the first movie we watched together, and –"

She made a tearful sort of cooing sound. "We are such incurable geeks, Kurt! Oh gosh. It's so pretty. Help me put it on."

Of course it ended up that she did most of the work, the digits of his hands being far too bulky for the delicate task of threading the necklace chain and clasp. But he held her hair aside and helped guide her fingers. The brightness of the smile she turned on him afterward came from both her unexpected joy and the moisture in her eyes.

"Thank you so much," she said, and it seemed she could not contain herself any longer. She threw her arms around his neck. He wasted no time in pressing her to him.

"Now I'm doubly glad I didn't go for the bunny earrings," he said as he smiled into her neck.

"That makes two of us. _Bunnies,_ Kurt?"

"Rahne thought they looked cute."

Amanda squeezed him before letting go, but he kept her close, fingers linked into her belt. "I hope you get them for Rahne, because I'm pretty sure that's what she was hoping you'd do."

The bunny earrings would take a chunk of his allowance, and that on top of the chunk he'd already paid for the necklace. But he didn't care. It was Amanda's idea, so giving the earrings to Rahne would be kind of like giving a present to her.

"So... so does this mean...?" Amanda bit her lip, looking up at him briefly. With soul-crushing hope.

His good mood evaporated. All this time, and he still hadn't made a decision. And as he stalled, the long hand of the clock ticked to 8:20; her parents were being surprisingly reasonable, letting them stay together this long, in spite of the fact that their boarding time was 8:40 and they still needed to pass security and find their gate. In spite of the fact that technically, they weren't supposed to be dating. In spite of the fact that he was a mutant – he was what they were moving to get away from.

Did they not understand that mutants were everywhere? That their new neighbors in Wisconsin – who lived in a two-story house with a wrap-around patio, who did tai-chi on the lawn every morning at eight and took one of those stolid family photos every year for their New Year's cards – that those average, normal, cozy Midwesterners could just as easily, were just as likely to be mutants as anyone in New York?

But maybe it wouldn't matter if they were. He suspected that their problem was less with mutants, and more with _one_ mutant in particular. Him. Because their daughter loved him. Because he looked the way he did. Maybe they wouldn't care about his mutated genes if his blue eyes and pasty Teutonic complexion were more than just a hologram to mask the fact that he could never not be what he was, not even for a day. Not even for the most perfect girl in the world.

And they had every reason to understand. Margali was Roma, for God's sake. Her husband was black. You could find people of all types in New York without trying, but prejudice was as imprinted in society as Christmas, as hailing Philadelphia cheesesteak as the best there is without having tried it yourself. The Seftons understood. Their lives were comfortable, happy, but they understood.

Maybe this was all just to prevent their daughter from backtracking. From ending up in a place they'd done everything to protect her from. He couldn't blame them, if that were the case. To them he must look like a one-way ticket to the Morlock sewers.

The hope on Amanda's face had begun to die. He'd hesitated too long. "So the answer's no, then," she said quietly, letting her arms fall to her sides.

He stared at their feet as guilt flooded in. The answer _wasn't_ no, but he – he wasn't even sure of the question. "Amanda. Listen. You are so important to me. These past months have been... the best in my life. I never imagined what I'd do if a situation like this popped up, because I never thought I'd _get _this far."

This wasn't perfectly true. If anything could be said about Kurt Wagner, it was that he had a very active imagination. He thought about going with girls who didn't mind his fur and pointed ears. Sweet, cheerful girls who maybe even _liked_ his strangeness. He just never invested much in believing in them beyond the world of daydreams.

Amanda was the epitome of kindness. She liked the same kind of movies he did, and joked around with him as if they'd known each other forever. She chewed her lip when she was nervous. When she danced her body became a river.

He made himself forge on. "You're off to a new place. You'll meet so many new people. Who knows when we'll be able to see each other again? I don't want to tie you down –"

"Please, Kurt," Amanda interrupted. "If I didn't want to be 'tied down' I'd break up with you myself. _Don't_ make a decision for me – make it for you. I've already made mine." She paused. "As for meeting new people, we're already partway through our senior year. No one transfers now, Kurt, _no one._ Everyone wants to spend their last year with their friends. With the people they've studied with and goofed off with for four years. I'm sure I'll make friends, but it's going to be hard to break in at this point. Especially since I would rather be here."

"Don't worry about that, Amanda. Everyone likes you. I bet you wind up prom queen, new girl."

"Mmm, you know I'll take any excuse to wear a tiara."

Their attempts at levity went stale in the air.

"My dad's calling," Amanda said, reluctantly, toying with the necklace.

Desperation began to overwhelm him. "Maybe we should just leave things like they are."

"You mean do long distance?"

"We could try. We have cell phones, and I'm not so bad at texting if I poke at the keys with a pencil. Wisconsin's too far for me to teleport, but –"

"Mandy! Let's go," bellowed her father over the tidal noise of the airport.

"– But I might be able to fly out and take you to prom," Kurt finished.

Amanda hugged him. "Okay. Let's do that." Leaning up and kissing him, her hands found his again, and there was something telling about the gentle way she squeezed them. She knew he was only saying what he thought she wanted to hear. But it made sense to try things her way, since he didn't know what he wanted himself. Long distance relationships were not always doomed. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe everything would work out.

"I meant it, you know." She blinked away tears. "I really love you."

The lump in his throat coalesced into a sharp, solid mass, a bulging splinter of flint. "Yeah. I – I –"

"Amanda, now! I'm sorry, honey. We're out of time." Margali stepped between them, a hand on her daughter's arm.

Amanda threw him another sad look over her shoulder. Her fingers fluttered in a hint of a wave. "Bye, Kurt."

"Bye," he forced out, in a daze. He watched as she disappeared into the line of frantic travelers going through security. On the chair her coffee and bagel lay forgotten.

Now she was searching her pocketbook for her boarding ticket. Now she was going through the body scanner. Now he could no longer see her. She must be headed for her gate, towing her carry-on, shoulders tight, braids swinging, probably resolved to speak to her parents as little as possible in return for this mid-semester uprooting.

He stayed at the barrier long after she'd gone, watching her flight number on the departures board until the plane took off, allowing himself a moment of self-pity. He'd expected to feel sad, lonely – cursed. But that niggling sense of unfinished business itched like nothing else. And he had only his own indecision to blame.

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for reading! If you liked it, a comment would totally make my day! Next chapter coming soon._


	2. Love Gurus and Good Samaritans

**Chapter Two  
****Love Gurus and Good Samaritans**

Logan had moved from the window to a bench by the bus stop, frowning around his cigarette. With his beaten leather hat tilted over his face and his shoulders hunched forward, he looked as likely to knife anyone who approached him as to say hello. But he'd waited for almost an hour while Kurt dallied in the airport lobby, glued to the departures board as if it were showing the final match of the World Cup. Logan could be a man of surprising patience, at least where the kids at the Xavier Institute were concerned. As Kurt wandered toward him, the old veteran shoved his hands in his the pockets of his jeans and looked him over wordlessly.

"She's gone," Kurt said, taking a dismal glance at the sky. Stupid. As if he could still see her plane.

Logan nodded. One hand emerged from his pocket and scrubbed at the whiskers on his chin. "That's rough," he said after a while. "That's real rough. You hungry?"

As if on cue, Kurt's stomach rumbled.

"Thought so. C'mon. We'll stop at that fast food joint you're always hauntin', what's it called, Gut Bomb."

Kurt couldn't help feeling surprised, as the glass door of the restaurant swung open, that the only part of his original plan which went smoothly was the bit about post-separation binge eating. The Gut Bomb was busy, but they managed to order their food and snag a booth without too much hassle. As he watched Logan rip a chunk out of his Carnivore's Triple-Stacked Burger, Kurt realized he had no idea what Logan ate on his own. Steak? Venison? Raw bear?

"Got a bone to pick with me?" Logan asked.

Kurt dropped his eyes to his own burger, the Double Decker King of Meat. His stomach churned in anticipation, but any desire to answer his appetite had left him somewhere along the highway. (Much though it pained him to let a good burger go to waste.)

"What?" grunted Logan.

Kurt shook his head. "Guess I'm not hungry after all."

"Look, nothin's so bad for a broken heart as an empty stomach. An' moreover, I ain't waitin' around here for you to quit sulking. _Eat."_

With a scowl, Kurt picked up the burger and took a smaller bite than usual. He chewed his greasy mouthful of bun and sesame seeds with all the gusto of a grazing cow. "Logan?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever been in love?"

His surly companion glanced at him sidelong. "You been talkin' to Summers?" Kurt shook his head. Logan grumbled. "I'm the last guy to be anyone's love guru, Elf. I've found life's a lot easier if you keep your wants simple. Just give me my bike and the open road."

It was an almost Zen philosophy (with a Keroucian touch of adventurism), one entirely incongruous with a man who seemed to go out of his way to pick a fight.

"But you don't keep things simple," Kurt protested, confused. "You go off for weeks at a time, even though you're a teacher at the Institute. The professor and Ororo say that you're out on errands, but they won't tell us what kind, and it's not like it takes ten days to pick up the dry cleaning. Plus you always come back looking like you hitched a ride in a semi barreling down Tornado Alley."

Logan's mouth quirked at that. "Might've done, a time or two. 'Sides, I said that's what I've found in my time. It's a lot harder to live by."

"So I should quit while I'm ahead, huh?" Kurt mumbled, deflating.

"Life's got a lot of curveballs to throw at ya. I know I don't have to tell _you_ that. But speaking of curveballs, I've been meaning to ask you what Danger Room elective you're gonna pick for your focus."

"Um," he said, swallowing. He hadn't anticipated this segue. "I don't know. I haven't really thought about it – you only told us about it a few days ago."

"Yeah, and in that time I've heard from Summers, Jean, Kitty, Rogue, and also Bobby, even though he ain't got the prereqs yet. You're the only one holdin' out."

"Oh."

"They ain't all made up their minds, but they got ideas. Kit's thinkin' of doin' something with martial arts. Rogue wants t'learn boxing. Summers 'n Jeannie want to try out the bo staff. Bobby's after guns, and I plan to be fifty miles away wearin' a hard hat when Chuck greenlights that."

Kurt shrugged. "Then I guess I'll do judo with Kitty."

"Both of you have enough of a handle on judo already. I got somethin' else planned for her. Ninjutsu."

"You're going to make a ninja out of her? That's so cool."

"I'll teach you too, but on the side. I want you to pick something else for your focus. Something that involves offense and stayin' out of those shadows."

"Why?!" Kurt exclaimed.

"Because I'm sick an' tired of watchin' you get pummeled every time we have to fight in broad daylight, Elf," Logan replied impatiently. He lowered his voice and continued: "If you're gonna be portin' into the line of fire, or gettin' into close quarters with some ham-fisted lunk who can knock you out just because he's twice your size, then you gotta be able to meet him head on. Cut him down before he cuts you."

Stung, Kurt scowled across the table. "What the heck? I can fight. I don't think I get hurt more than the others do."

"When we were tryin' to stop Apocalypse, and it was just you, me and Slim – didja notice how many times you got slammed? Summers can protect himself with those eyes of his. And I got my claws. You? You just run away."

"It was Apocalypse! And Mystique! We were totally outmatched, even you!"

"Keep your voice down! Yeah, there are times when you're really outmatched. And there are times when the fact that the other guy's bigger than you and stronger than you don't matter so long as you're smarter. So you gotta know what you're doin'. Listen. I'm not callin' you a weakling. There's a hole in your training and I want to fill it. Almost everyone else can do something about that bigger guy, besides move away from him."

"Have you forgotten I'm pretty much Gumby's fuzzier cousin?" Kurt countered. "I'd wrap my toes around his head and slam it into a wall."

"Okay. When we get back to the Institute I'll let you try that on me, and we'll see how it goes," Logan shot back.

Kurt took a vicious bite of his burger and chewed it with contempt. "Kitty isn't exactly what I'd call a street fighter," he pointed out. "What are _her_ great offensive powers?"

"None," said Logan. "That's why I want her to take up ninjutsu. It'll work well with her power set, and she can try out different weapons, see what works for her."

"It would work with my power set too."

"You ain't listenin'," Logan balled up his burger wrapper and tossed it aside, before leaning forward with a weighty glare leveled on his student. Kurt tried not to squirm in his seat. "Kitty gets to learn ninjutsu because aside from her pretty phasing ability, creepin' around unseen don't just come natural to her. If she learns that skill and combines it with her phasing, she'll be a real contender. But she's got to learn it. You're used to going unseen. In fact, you make an art of it. May not be ninjutsu, but you're a damn good sneak, and you know I wouldn't say that if I didn't mean it.

"Now I'll teach you more if you want to learn. But it's not a skill you're lacking. Get it? _Offense_ is. You can learn whatever you want, just make sure something that is completely about offense makes your list. Something that makes you think about how to take down your opponent, not just defend yourself. Up till now you've gotten by with those fancy somersaults of yours, but it ain't enough. Take it from someone who's all too familiar with the real world – it ain't enough."

By the time Logan's lecture was winding down, Kurt had slumped low in his seat. His jaw worked steadily on the last of his burger just for something to do other than absorb everything Wolverine had laid out for him. This was just what he needed today – a reminder of how much of a fighter he was _not,_ and no Amanda around to reassure him. _Phantastich._

Logan was right, of course. He usually was about these things. Kurt enjoyed Danger Room drills with the other X-men, leaping from wall to wall, improvising, catching people who lost their balance, teleporting Kitty into entire drone armies to short them out, laughing and making _Star Wars_ jokes about it afterward. But motivating himself to practice on his own was a far different matter. There would be no bad puns, no laughter. It wouldn't feel like a game. It would feel like... learning to kill.

Which it was.

Logan called it self-defense. If Kurt could convince himself that these skills he was working to build up were meant to take down the likes of Magneto or Apocalypse, some self-proclaimed Big Bad with a chip on their shoulder the size of a small planet, he thought maybe he wouldn't hesitate so much. But that's not all they were for. This past year had proven that irrevocably.

On the other hand, while none of the other X-men were warmongers by any means, they all went along with Logan. And Logan's decision to have them each take up an offensive speciality for the year was approved by Professor X, if not Ororo and Hank as well. It made sense. They'd been attacked by giant robots, they'd been scattered to the winds and captured, the Institute had been blown to smithereens. Never in his life did Kurt think he'd actually have a use for the word "smithereens" outside of comic books.

They all had their reasons to distrust humans – humans who, in turn, distrusted them. Most of the students didn't have a story as bereft of warmth as Logan's or X-23's, but plenty had experienced rejection once their mutation become common knowledge – from their friends, their communities, their families. Some, like Jean and Bobby, knew their parents would welcome them home, but only after praying on it for a while. Some had no family to protect them at all. At least Scott and Alex had each other; Rogue didn't feel comfortable trusting anyone in her hometown. Kitty had it pretty good, compared to the rest. Her mother called her once a week and she went home for every holiday. And even _she_ thought Logan was right that they needed to prepare for the worst.

So what was wrong with him, Kurt Wagner, the one who couldn't show his real face in public without inciting a riot, who knew – who'd always known – that he might as well wish for his own pirate ship in Neverland as for a normal life?

Was he that caught up in the fantasy?

* * *

"Hey, Kurt." Kitty waltzed into his room with the complacent carriage of one who knows they are a preferred visitor and relishes it. "So I have a conundrum. Michael Jackson or Elvis?"

Hanging from the ceiling fan with the book he'd been pretending to read in case of any interruptions while he was brooding, Kurt craned his neck to look at her, upside-down in his doorframe. "You are going to have to give me more than that. Though just out of personal taste, I'd go for Michael Jackson."

"That's all I needed to know," Kitty replied, bouncing right back out the way she came.

"Wait –" In a burst of purplish smoke, he ported into the hall. "Are you taking a survey or something?" he asked as he followed her.

"Nope, way more interesting than that." She swerved into her own room.

"My curiosity is officially piqued. What kind of conundrum involves Elvis and Michael Jackson?"

"Bobbleheads," she said, and turned to grin at his look of bewilderment as she brought up the Internet on her laptop. Kurt tilted his head to look at the address – – and let his mouth slide open.

"I will never understand the affinity for these things."

Kitty shrugged. "They're stupid. So we like them. Same way we like the stupid yippy dog who eats its own vomit. Ok, here's the Michael Jackson one. I thought, he's cool, he looks right out of the 'Bad' music video, and usually picking Michael over Elvis would be a no-brainer, but – well, just look at Elvis." She clicked another tab.

"Whoa," Kurt declared. The Elvis doll came complete with sequined white suit, enormous rhinestone belt and exaggerated pompadour. On his feet were – "Pinch me, quick. Are those _blue suede shoes?"_

"Blue suede shoes," Kitty confirmed with a nod. "And there's a button underneath you can press to play the song. And he gyrates."

"That is one tricked out bobblehead."

"So you see my dilemma. Michael's amazing, but imagine everyone's horror if we add _this_ guy to the décor."

"Hank would do that funny thing with his lip where it curls in and you can see half his gums."

"I give it ten days before Logan blows a gasket and uses the thing for target practice."

"Kitty, I know when you asked me I said Michael Jackson, but that was before I had any idea of the context –"

"You're right, context changes everything –"

"So we're getting Elvis, right?"

"We are getting Elvis," she confirmed, smugly tapping the Add To Cart icon. "I love novelty stuff like this," she said as she rummaged through her wallet for her credit card. "This site's all bobbleheads and bobblehead-related junk, T-shirts and hats and mugs and things. There's even a bobblehead holding a bobblehead."

"Considering you're the girl who thought wearing a pyramid would improve her grades, I'm not surprised at all that you discovered this place."

"Considering you're the guy whose entire room is littered with fan boy paraphernalia, I'm assuming the reason you're peering over my shoulder like that is because you want to look for Luke Skywalker bobbleheads."

Kurt grinned. "Close. Actually I was wondering if they've got any Errol Flynn."

"Your boyfriend?"

"Ha ha. Or any Robin Hoods. Just not Kevin Costner."

"Movie freak," Kitty said affectionately. She popped her cheek and typed "Errol Flynn" in the search bar for him, a gesture Kurt appreciated as he had just as much trouble typing on a keyboard as on a cell phone. Plus, her computer had a touchpad in place of a mouse.

They spent a few minutes scrolling up and down the webpage (no Errol Flynns, but there were several generic Robin Hoods, and one from _Men In Tights_ which set them off singing until Rogue threw a slipper at the wall between their rooms and yelled that they better start writing out their wills). As the last of their laughter drained away, Kurt and Kitty fell on her bed together in a heap, and Kurt realized that for an instant he'd forgotten about –

"So," Kitty said, rolling onto her stomach, "how'd things go with Amanda today?"

Right. That. It was amazing how completely happiness could be stifled by a sudden pain. "They went," he replied as his grin faded.

"Did you break up?"

"I guess not."

"Guess?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Well, we didn't really... we didn't come to a decision before she had to go. So we just said, 'let's give long distance a try and see what happens.'"

"So you're not broken up."

"No." He sighed, long and hard, shifting restlessly on Kitty's purple quilt. He couldn't keep still, couldn't keep his eyes fixed on her face. He put her stuffed dragon doll, Lockheed, between his knees and raised them above his head. "Why does it matter to you anyway?"

"I just wanted to know if I can start handing out your number to all my cute single friends."

"Kitty! I don't need you to play matchmaker!"

"Hey, I'm just trying to make sure everyone gets a fair chance at fuzzy blue pie. Not like it matters, since you're still with her."

Nodding, he juggled Lockheed between his legs, then kicked it into the air with his long feet. The blue spade of his tail darted out to catch the dragon as it fell. "Hey, Kitty?"

"Yep."

"Do you think a long distance relationship is a bad idea?"

She gave the wall a pensive look. "Dunno. Depends on the couple."

"Well, do you think you could do it?"

"I think... I think I would miss having someone to hold. I mean, if the separation were just for a little while, it wouldn't be a big deal – and if I really loved him, maybe it wouldn't matter how long we were apart. But it would be hard. We'd have to be totally committed to making things work." For a moment she hesitated, but then added, "Look how things went with Lance and me. When he was living here, I could see him every day, I could share things with him. I liked that I could just... _be_ with him, instead of wondering what he got up to over in the Brotherhood house. Having a crush on him felt way more real while he was here instead of there, and the Brotherhood house isn't even that far away."

"Yeah. That makes sense."

"Geez, I'm being a total downer, aren't I? You and Amanda are nothing like me and Lance. _You've _actually been dating for more than an hour. And you've got all these great memories between you."

"Yeah," he said again. Maybe he was worrying over nothing. Wouldn't be the first time. Amanda hadn't even been gone a day, it was way too early to judge whether or not they could manage the distance. If he were wise he'd let the subject rest so he didn't kill his chances with over-thinking.

If he were wise.

He made himself sit up, determined to at least act as if he weren't obsessing over this. He was _Kurt Wagner._ Kurt Wagner did not _brood._ "So! Since we're having girl talk, are there any boys you're chasing lately?"

"Oh my God, Kurt, _girl talk?"_

"Well, are there?"

"You know my love life is the driest well in the desert these days."

"That can't be. You're smart, funny and cute. Guys should be lining up to date you. Don't hide your light under a bushel, Kitty."

"One, I don't think that's the way that phrase is meant to be used, and two, let's drop it, I feel like I'm listening to a self-help program."

"Okay. But you should let me give out _your_ number to some of my friends. Andrew Perez once told me he thinks you're –"

"Andrew Perez wears the same Skrillex T-shirt every day."

"... True, but –"

"And I thought he quit being friends with you after we were unmasked as mutants?"

"I was only using him as an example of someone who –"

"Has terrible taste in music and social issues?"

Kurt chuckled and shook his head. "Alright, alright. Letting it drop now. So, uh. Mind helping me with my Calc homework?"

* * *

"Why, hello, Mr. Wagner," Hank said pleasantly, with a brief upward glance from the lab table, upon which were spread heaps of papers covered in inscrutable text and diagrams. The overhead lights were off, but a bright LED glow spilled from the desk lamps scattered around the room, casting odd shadows that bent and collided like a cubist pastiche.

"Special delivery for Herr Doktor McCoy," Kurt replied, letting the door swing shut behind him. His arms were full of the box which had just arrived at the front gate. "What could you be ordering from Stark Industries?"

"What indeed? You can leave it right there on the floor."

Kurt let the box down gently. "You're not after an image inducer, are you?"

"In fact I already have my own. You never see me wear it because I don't go out much. It's not people attacking the Beast that frightens me. It's the beast attacking people."

The room, with its bare walls and stainless steel countertops, felt suddenly gloomy. "You must get so lonely."

"It's not so bad. I was a bit of a loner before all this happened to me anyway."

_That's not how I remember it._

"Now I have access to all these resources through the Institute that I never had before. I can conduct research I could only dream of in the past. And you're here, and the others."

"And me," piped in another voice – Forge, face obscured by a protective mask as he waved around a welder. He put the welder down and popped open the mask. "Hey, Kurt, long time no see. Are those the updates?" he asked, immediately distracted by the delivery.

"Must be," said Hank. "Would you check that they're all accounted for?"

"Can do."

"What kind of updates?" Kurt asked as he lolled against the table. He tried not to sound too curious. Hank's lab was something of a cave of wonders to the rest of them. Even Kitty and Jean, the best at chemistry, could rarely make heads or tails of his work.

Forge ripped the package open with a box cutter a little too zealously; packing peanuts went flying across the floor. Hank sighed and visibly restrained himself from commenting. "For you guys," he said to Kurt. "Your image inducer, for one. Cerebro, of course. And I have something new I want to try with Scott's optics."

"You need all this stuff just for that?" said Kurt, kneeling to help Forge clean up the peanuts. So he didn't know squat about the things Hank did down here – he could be cultivating his own legion of superpowered soldiers and keeping them in shrunken petri dish form until he had enough to take over Westchester County. But that box was way too big for just a few small projects. His shoulders ached from carrying it.

"The means for one other endeavor are in there also, but I can't tell you about it yet," Hank explained.

"Ooh, a mystery. Wait, this doesn't have to do with the dimension I teleport through, does it?"

"No. I didn't mean you specifically. All the X-men."

"But you know, Kurt, if you ever get up the nerve to try again –"

"Uh, I don't think so, Forge. I did want to ask you a favor, though. If that's okay."

"'Course it is. Shoot."

"Would it be hard to build a keyboard that will fit my fingers?"

Both Hank and Forge stopped what they were doing and stared at him. Kurt felt heat rush to his face. "It's just, uh. I'm going to be writing a lot of emails soon, and normally I just tape pencils to my fingers so I don't press a bunch of keys at once, but it takes a long time to type anything that way and –"

Forge waved his hands wildly. "Don't worry! It's cool! Sorry, we're not all slack-jawed because of you."

"We're just shocked we didn't think of that ourselves," Hank said with an apologetic nod. "I customized my keyboard when my hands grew, but I suppose I thought since you arrived here a year before I did you would already have your own."

"Oh," Kurt laughed, sheepish. "Well, I never touched a computer in Germany, so when I first came here I didn't know how to use one. I still don't use it much even now that I've been taught, and I didn't want to ask for a different keyboard if it was just going to sit there."

Hank was shaking his head. "Never hesitate to ask for something like that, Kurt. That's why we're here, to help make the world more accessible to mutants."

"I can build a new keyboard for you in a couple of days," Forge said.

"Is there anything else you need?" Hank asked, peering down at him, mild concern written in the crease of his broad, hairy brow. "How about scissors? Writing utensils? Cutlery? I know all of those became infinitely more complicated for my hands to manipulate after my transformation."

"No, it's fine," Kurt insisted. "The Professor got me larger scissors a long time ago. And I've used regular pencils and stuff my whole life, got my own technique. It's just the keyboard that's difficult."

"How about your cell phone?"

He blinked. "Well – that is a little hard –"

"The buttons on a cell phone are even smaller than on a keyboard," Forge said.

"We can't make them much larger without giving him something very cumbersome," Hank mused, "which defeats the point of a cell phone. Perhaps a voice-operated mechanism."

"I didn't mean to put you to all this trouble."

"No trouble at all." Hank clapped his shoulder and steered him toward the door. "As I said, that's why we're here. Now, I don't mean to be an ill host, but it's going to take us a deal of concentration to sort through everything in that box –"

"I'm gone," Kurt said, and with a _bamf,_ he was.

* * *

** To: salamanda96 (Amanda Sefton)  
****From: kwagner .x (Kurt Wagner)  
****Subject: hello**

**Hello. How are you? I hope you like WI. Cheese is very good I hear. Is your house nice? I am typing this on new keybord which forge made. Its not so easy for me yet. So pleas forgive typos.**

** We have pep rally this afternoon. Wont be as fun witout you to help make fun of the sports teams skits. Rogue always hides on pep rally day but we are making her come this time because of senior superlatives. If you were here you wuld get prettiest smile for sure. And prettiest hair. And prettiest everything. You would get every award because I would pretend to be diferent people & vote for you a million times.**

** last year jean got most likely to win a nobel prize and scott got bset car. hahaha that was before everything happened of course. I wonder if rogue and I will get anything.**

** Looking forward to your reply. Give my best to your parents.**

**Sincerely,  
****Kurt Wagner**

* * *

**To: salamanda96 (Amanda Sefton)  
****From: kwagner .x (Kurt Wagner)  
****Subject: hello again**

**I think I talked about cheese at the airport. Sorry did not mean to bring up again cheese. Its supposed to be excellent cheese tho. Im hungry this morning**

**Also kitty tells me its weird to rite 'sincerely your full name' as if you are someone old or my aunt. I will get better at this.**

**Insincerely, fuzzy and blue**

* * *

**To: salamanda96 (Amanda Sefton)**

**From: kwagner .x (Kurt Wagner)  
****Subject: hello again (again)**

**I miss you.**

* * *

The gymnasium was a mob scene after lunch as students crammed into the bleachers, tripping over each other to sit with their friends, with the result that the topmost seats were congested beyond any level of comfort. Kitty covered her nose as three more boys somehow managed to squeeze into the bench behind her, sure that if the oppressive heat in the crowded gym didn't kill her, the stench of B.O. would.

No one was fighting for _her_ bench, of course. _Their_ bench – the mutants' bench. On her left, Kurt sat with this legs wide, flipping his phone open and closed. Rogue was on her other side, slouched over her knees with her head in her hands, looking bored as hell.

Kitty nudged her leg. "D'you think you'll get an award? 'Best Make-up' maybe?"

Green eyes rolled back dramatically. "Please," scoffed Rogue. "Like any of these losers even cares that we're here."

"Hey, you're a senior. People know that much."

"I'm a senior _mutant,_ Kitty, don't play dumb. It's not cute."

Kitty huffed a little, but let it go. What use was there in fighting when Rogue was probably right?

She turned to the more talkative member of their party. "What about you, Kurt?"

He offered her a half-grin. If not for that hologram he was wearing, she'd get a glimpse of fang. "Sexiest Muppet," he said without hesitation.

"Dream on." She wrinkled her nose. He purred at her from the back of his throat. She slapped his knee and they fell forward, sniggering into their palms.

Rogue's sulky attitude was nothing new, and anyway, she hated pep rallies. Kitty wasn't overly fond of them herself, but she hadn't wanted to miss it this year. Per Board of Education ruling, mutants could no longer join competitive clubs, for fear that they'd "cheat" with their powers. _Jean's lucky she got out when she did,_ Kitty thought morosely. But if she couldn't do track and field herself anymore, at least she wanted to be here to cheer for her teammates. Some of them were still friendly with her, even if they wouldn't rush to her aid when your garden variety hallway bigot stuffed her in a locker. And she was holding out hope that, once they got over the newness of her "condition," they'd see that she was still the same girl with whom they'd gone pole-vaulting, jumped hurdles, celebrated after a meet at Dairy Queen, where they'd all flirted with the waiter until he gave them free sprinkles for their sundaes.

Maybe she was a bit naïve – but everything about their school situation stunk. She'd always had friends at school. Not that she'd ever been part of the in-crowd, but she'd never had to search for a welcome place to sit in the caf, or have the teacher beg another student to be her partner for a project. And now here she sat, on the emptiest bench in the gym with no one but other outcasts for company.

That was a mean thought. Kurt and Rogue were two of her closest friends. It wasn't their fault that things were like this anymore than it was hers. She just felt so frustrated. All the time.

And to think, a couple years ago it had bugged her to be left out of a party just because she was a _freshman._

The last few students trickled in, among them the newer X-Institute students – Bobby, Sam, Dani, Jubilee, Roberto and Rahne. Tabitha and Amara had ditched. _Predictable,_ Kitty thought. Ray was nowhere to be seen either. In all likelihood, he'd joined the girls in cutting out early.

Those kids hadn't been revealed as mutants on national TV, but it was common knowledge that the Xavier Institute housed "freaks." Lucky that they all liked each other and went everywhere in packs, a raucous, giggling mutant tumbleweed. They called their lunch table "the Freak Zone." And they didn't even bother looking for Kitty, Kurt and Rogue before settling in together on a floor-level bench.

Except for Dani. She searched the crowd and grinned broadly when she found Kitty in the middle. Kitty watched her race up the steps. "About time you showed up!" she said as Dani slid in between her and Kurt.

"Anything interesting happen before I got here?" Dani asked.

"Not unless you count the smell. Does no one here bother to shower?"

"Ew." Dani plugged her nose, and the two girls amused themselves making disgusted faces at each other until Sierra Michaelis, the student body president, tapped her mic and called them to attention.

"Welcome to our annual Homecoming pep rally, Bayville High!"

Thunderous cheers went up from the bleachers. The floor vibrated as what seemed like every boy in the room stamped his feet.

"Before we start, I want to thank everyone who helped make today possible. Let's face it, if it weren't for Mr. Nguyen and his dedication to tagging and labeling every last extension cord, we'd be stuck listening to the a capella chorus right now, instead of the awesome mix tape Gordon put together for us. No offense to the a capella chorus..."

"Why do important people love giving speeches so much?" Dani said in Kitty's ear.

"Sierra just likes to hear herself talk," Kitty whispered back, somewhat distracted. Not by the speech – she'd heard it three times previous at other pep rallies and it was always the same. But by the group of late-comers just sauntering in now, as if they owned the place.

Climbing the stairs to the farmost corner of the bleachers were Pietro, Freddie, Toad and Wanda.

And Lance.

Kurt noticed them about the same time she did. "Look," he hissed, leaning in. "The Brotherhood's decided to show some school spirit for once."

"For once? They have a nasty habit of showing up at every school event and butchering it," Kitty replied. She tore her gaze away once the group of them had taken their seats. Sierra was ushering in the first group of performers, which turned out to be the boys' soccer team wearing sleeping bags over their heads. Once center-stage, they threw the sleeping bags off and began to hop in some appallingly uncoordinated dance to "Party Rock Anthem." Their team captain pranced in moments later in a gingham Dorothy dress and blonde wig to an eruption of hoots and hollers from the bleachers.

Kitty barely heard them. She bent over and inspected a smudge of gum which had been trampled into the floor by hundreds of sneakers who knew how long ago. Probably years. Eons.

She had so not been staring at Lance.

* * *

"Well, that was a major disappointment," Dani groused while Kitty rummaged through her locker. "I can't believe neither of you won anything," she went on unhappily.

"We weren't exactly expecting to," Rogue reminder her.

Kurt nodded. "Yeah. I was kind of hoping they'd include us somehow, you know, just as a good will gesture. Maybe they'll be up for something like that by the time you're a senior."

"If the world were fair, you would've won 'Best Laugh' hands down, Kurt," Dani said.

Kitty smiled to herself, gathering her books. She didn't have to look to know Kurt was blushing to the tips of his pointed ears. And she agreed with Dani, totally.

"Then Rogue should get 'Nicest Hair," Kurt said.

"No way," Rogue countered immediately, but with a thread of amusement. "If I won anything, it'd be 'Most Likely To Drive Off A Cliff 'Cause Y'all Are Crazy.'"

"Fine, if we're making stuff up then I want 'Best Person To Share A Pool Full of Skittles With.'"

"You'd be the _worst_ person for that. You'd eat them all."

"Gallantly saving my friends from stomachaches and root canal."

"You know what?" Kitty stood and slung her bookbag over her shoulder. "We should make our own superlatives. Just for X-men."

"And X-men-in-training," Dani added.

"Have fun with that," said Rogue as she started down the hall. "I don't feel let down here. All I want is to get out of this place. Graduation can't come soon enough."

She walked off, brusque as always. "It's only the beginning of October," Kitty muttered. "How's she going to last till June?"

Dani took her arm. "Forget her. Since we're out early, do you want to hit the mall with me?"

"That sounds great," Kitty answered. "But I can't today. I've got this paper for Physics due tomorrow and I really need to talk it over with Dr. McCoy before I turn it in."

"You're such a good student," Dani sighed. "How about you, Kurt? I dunno if you're much of a mall rat."

He shrugged. "Sometimes I am, but not right now. Sorry, Dani."

"I guess that's that. Tabby and Amara are probably there anyway, so I'll try to hook up with them. See you guys later."

She waved and disappeared down the hall, leaving Kitty alone with Kurt. She looked at him. He had his phone out again, resting open in his palm like a compass.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that Amanda had yet to reply to his emails.

"Maybe you should go with her," she said.

Kurt blinked at her for a moment, uncomprehending. "With Dani? I just don't feel like it today."

"Yeah, but maybe you should. It might be good just to do something. To keep your mind off... everything else."

He frowned, not crossly. "I'm fine."

"Then why are you glued to your cell phone all of a sudden?"

Said cell phone suddenly found itself blanketed in the depths of Kurt's pocket. "I am not 'glued' to my cell phone. I just want to make sure I don't miss Amanda when she calls."

"I know. It's just, don't forget to have a life outside of Amanda. You did okay before her and you'll be okay after."

"We're still together," he answered tersely.

God, he could be so stubborn. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I _know."_

They walked out the front entrance together. Rain had begun to fall in buckets around lunchtime. Puddles pockmarked the gravel, a slippery labyrinth between the school and the main road.

The weight of Kitty's bookbag almost dragged her down as she struggled with her umbrella, silently cursing her teachers for assigning so much homework just because it was a short day. At last she got it open, and looked up to discover Lance Armstrong by a column right next to her.

He seemed just as so surprised to come across her, skidding to a halt and jerking his head back. His hair was longer. A hint of stubble shadowed the angles of his jaw. And all at once Kitty realized she didn't find herself as taken in by those steely blue eyes as she once did.

They were, however, staring at each other, for rather a long time. Freddie and Toad were behind him, snickering over his shoulder. Meanwhile Kurt drifted to Kitty's side and, apparently deciding this stand-off or whatever had lasted long enough, interrupted them: "Can we help you?"

Which came off a bit cold. Lance's expression hardened. The slightest thing set him off these days, Kitty thought as her shoulders slumped. After the Brotherhood joined in the fight against Apocalypse, she'd hoped relations between them and the X-men would improve. They hadn't gotten worse, at least. But Pietro couldn't help being a snot, Wanda seemed to have no interest in anything except hair dye and angry music, and Freddie and Toad were Freddie and Toad. This moment, right now, marked the first interaction between her and Lance since they'd said good-bye on the battlefield. They passed each other in the halls, they waited in the same pizza line in the cafeteria. But even when the crowd pushed them right next to each other, they didn't talk.

And it was ridiculous. And she hated it. But every time she tried to force a conversation with him, something stopped her tongue. Probably the memory of the time he tricked her into using her powers to help him cheat. Or all the times he and the Brotherhood had put mutants everywhere in jeopardy by... behaving like the teenagers they were.

Damn him. Damn everything.

And damn Kurt for his useless hovering. "Yeah, what do you want, Lance?" Kitty demanded as she directed attention back to her. Shoulders squared. Game face on.

"Nothing," Lance grunted with a sullen frown. "We're just chilling here. That okay with you? It's still a free country."

"Careful or you'll get written up for loitering," Kitty shot back. Then her brow furrowed. "Where's your umbrella?"

"Forgot it." Lance fiddled with the chain on his jeans.

"All of you?" Kurt asked.

"We only have one for all of us." Freddie had his binder raised over his head. "No umbrella covers me anyway."

"Ain't nowhere the Toad's more at home than in the wet," added Toad, already hopping into a nearby puddle. His tongue darted out to catch a fly. "S'only Nancy-Lancy who wigs out over a little shower."

"I didn't 'wig out.' I just felt like watching the rain for a while."

"Yeah, then he's gonna listen to Mozart and write poetry," Freddie sneered.

"You better shut your trap before your room ends up underground."

"Okay, enough," Kitty broke in. "Here, Lance, you can borrow mine," she said, thrusting her umbrella into his arms.

He was unbalanced for a moment and teetered trying to catch it. "Uh, thanks but no thanks. It's not like I'm gonna melt."

"Whatever. Look, just take it, alright? Don't make this into a thing."

"What thing?"

"Hey, Fuzzbutt," Toad sang as he leapt over to Kurt. "How's about you play good Samaritan an' let me have yours?"

Kurt groaned. "You just said you don't need one!"

_"I_ don't, but it rude to make a lady walk in the rain," Toad replied. He jabbed a thumb at the brick wall. Kitty and Kurt glanced over and found Wanda huddled below the roof, far enough not to look part of the group but surveying them from the corner of her eye.

"You can just bamf yo' blue ass back to that shack you call a mansion," Toad went on with his trademark smugness. "But what's a gorgeous dame like Wandy to do in a flood like this? Look for a gondola?"

"Yeah, yeah," Kurt sighed, walking toward Wanda.

"Hey, lemme have it, I'll hold it for her –"

Unfortunately for Toad, Kurt's mood was too sour to indulge him today. He held out the umbrella to Wanda, who narrowed her eyes. "Here. Yes, you don't need my help, I know, but take it anyway."

For a moment Wanda stared at him. Then she reached for the umbrella.

"Alright! Let's go, sweetcheeks!" Toad punched the air and swung an arm around Wanda's waist. With a furious glare, she flung the umbrella open and marched into the rain without a word. Toad leapt after her with dogged enthusiasm. Freddie trudged behind, the binder keeping him dry not at all.

Kitty wondered how much longer Lance would keep up this pretense of ignoring her. One of them would just have to be the bigger person. "How about if we walk to your house together?" she suggested softly.

"... Okay, I guess," Lance said, agreeing with very little resistance, Kitty reflected. Her heart rate sped up. Maybe those baby blues still had some power over her after all.

Turning to Kurt, she shrugged off her bookbag and handed it to him. "Could you leave this in my room for me?"

"Are you sure you're all right on your own?" Kurt squinted sidelong at Lance as he took the bag from her.

"Kurt, cut the bravado and just go."

"But maybe I should –"

"It's fine," she insisted, and nudged him off. Reluctantly he teleported away, probably to lie around gazing at his cell phone some more. She hoped he kicked this bad humor quick, because he wasn't half as cute when he could do nothing but mope. Kurt got moody so rarely that she felt she ought to cut him more slack, but patience had never been one of her virtues.

She gazed out into the rain. "I guess we should get going."

With the umbrella between them like a partition, Kitty and Lance set off for the Brotherhood house.

* * *

Much of the walk passed in silence. But Kitty sensed the ice thawing – how, or why, she didn't know, but perhaps it was the way Lance kept a careful watch on the umbrella to make sure it wasn't covering him more than her. Or how he kept her pace, but without dragging his feet.

In spite of Lance's best efforts, though, both of them wound up well drenched on the one side of their bodies that wasn't fully protected by the umbrella. Kitty's socks sponged up puddles until they were heavy and waterlogged. Her toes made a squishing sound with every step, and in the end that did it, one too many squishes in the expansive quiet which knocked her out of her stupor as the slapdash roof of the Brotherhood house came into view.

"So have you heard from them?" she asked, rounding on him with a swift pivot. He looked at her blankly, so she elaborated: "Magneto or Mystique? 'Cause we haven't heard boo from anyone since we put the lid on Apocalypse a few weeks ago, and it's got us all on edge."

"I thought you guys would be grateful that it's peacetime."

"We are, but not if it's a false peace." She didn't add that they could hardly enjoy it, what with the general public either pretending they didn't exist or drumming up hysteria about the "mutant problem."

"Well, we don't know anything either. Last time I saw Mystique, she was made of stone and propped in the living room with a lampshade on her head."

"And Magneto? Pietro or Wanda must be in contact with him."

"Then you should ask Pietro or Wanda. It's not like we're close."

Kitty looked at the ground. "Lance, would you ever consider joining the X-men again?"

"After the kind of welcome I got last time?" His shoulders tightened and he shook his head. "That's no place for me."

"Why not?" she cried. "You said you're not close with the rest of the Brotherhood. You're the only one among them who seems to have a conscience now and then, I mean, I guess Wanda does too, but she's way more of a loose cannon, and besides, you're not a loner. And the way the other kids at the Institute treated you was majorly shitty, but you showed them up in the end. It's thanks to you that plane didn't nosedive into the ground right after take-off. So everyone should know better than to bug you this time, and the Professor will make sure of it – he felt bad about you leaving. Scott is Scott, he's always going to do the 'stern, protective leader' thing, but he's in college now and dating Jean and we don't see him as much so –"

"You know, you X-freaks aren't the only ones with a 'conscience' or whatever," Lance retorted, looking annoyed. "We have a different philosophy. None of your 'help the people who hurt us' crap."

"It's not about that," Kitty protested.

"If I join up with you, I gotta put my life on the line, sometimes for things I don't care about. I got an idea of right and wrong and I don't want to be told what to do all the time. Damn, Kitty, you guys wear coordinated uniforms. You should form a color guard."

"Oh please, only the X is on every uniform." She kicked a stone at a garbage can as they started up the walkway. "We deal with mutant threats. Like Apocalypse."

"Now I definitely want to join."

"It's a job that takes guts. It takes everything you have," she snapped, even though she knew this was a losing battle. "We're not about 'helping people who hurt us.' We're not _doormats._ And you're one to complain about that kind of thing anyway – you and I wouldn't even be talking like this if I still held the first time we met against you. Or a bunch of other times."

A muscle jerked in Lance's jaw and his brow darkened. At any rate, if he was pissed off, it meant something she was saying stuck with him.

"The X-men are about helping anyone who needs help. Preventing tragedy. Changing the future." Okay, that sounded like a brochure. Time to wrap things up before she started quoting Jean. "We want to be proactive."

"If you say so."

"You won't even think about it?"

"Not my world, Kitty. Not even close to my world."

"So, what, then?" Stopping in the middle of the path, Kitty tightened her grip on the umbrella, until the grooves on the handle left stripes on her palm. She couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice. Nothing about their situation was the least bit satisfactory. She wanted a complete overhaul. She wanted either to start over, or to not care about him. "This is how it's going to be? You and me pretending we don't know each other, that we don't have a history? Except when my guys and your guys fight, of course, _then_ we thrash each other like a bunch of feral dogs."

"I guess so, unless you wanna drop out of the X-men and join the Brotherhood."

"Lance."

"You could share Wanda's room, though she might murder you in your sleep."

"You know I can't do that."

"Yeah." His mouth tipped. "But you don't have to worry about thrashing me. At least not right now. We're too lazy to start anything without someone like Mystique breathing down our necks. And I can't speak for the others, but I'm not taking orders from Pietro anymore. He gets these ideas in his head and Toad and Fred are stupid enough to think they'll work out better than last time. But not me. Pietro can stuff it."

"Well, I suppose that's a relief," Kitty replied.

They'd made it to the front steps by now. Inside the house, they could hear Toad and Freddie kicking up a racket – TV blaring, Freddie's laughter rocking the couch, Toad prattling on about everything under the sun. Kitty wondered what Wanda did while the others tore up the place. Did she ever leave her room?

"Can we just agree to be friends?" she asked, determined not to go home empty-handed.

Her request seemed to amuse him for some reason. He made an abortive movement as if to lean down – and, what, kiss her? But the next minute he was striding through the chipped and creaky door.

"Yeah, Kitty. We're friends," was all he said, before leaving her alone on the step.

* * *

Kitty mulled over that look of his on the walk back to the Institute. Something about it felt off. Maybe it was as simple as he couldn't think of her as just a friend after they'd come so close to being More Than Friends. She remembered coming to in Mexico to find him inches away, muscles still flexed even as the unconscious Magneto descended harmlessly from the sky. How happy she'd been to see him. How all the maybes and what-ifs came rushing back at the thought that he'd come through, not just for her but for the world. Come through like a hero.

There was a part of him she could love, she felt sure of it. It was the in-between times, the apathy and the discord and the idling, that stifled their chances.

_It's time to move on, Pryde. There are other fish in the sea, and you've been pining after this one too long._

While attempting to convince herself of this, she phased through the front gate, not even noticing the black car as it rolled up the drive. The rain had cleared up at last. She crossed the green where Rahne and Jamie were playing a game of Frisbee in the muddy earth, and was just wondering what she could grab from the kitchen for a study snack when the warm, husky tones of a familiar voice caught her ear.

"I'm gone for a few weeks and you've forgotten me already?"

All thoughts of ill-fated love dashed aside, Kitty whirled around on the balls of her feet and threw herself into Ororo's open arms.

"Ororo! You're back!"

* * *

_A/N: In case you don't have senior superlatives wherever you're from, they are awards, often silly, given out to graduating seniors at many American high schools. Things like "best car," "best smile," best couple," "nicest teeth," "most likely to become a millionaire," "best person to have with you on a deserted island," etc. I was not popular enough to win anything in high school, but I thought they were so much fun._

_This is actually two chapters merged into one. What do you think of this length? I'd wanted to do shorter chapters so I could keep a better updating pace than I usually do, but whenever I end a chapter I feel like it's too short. So I've combined two this time, let me know what you think._

_Thanks so much for the lovely reviews last chapter! They totally made my day. If you would deign to make my day again... *cough*puppy eyes*_


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